


I'm the Fella You Came In With

by NaughtiusMaximus



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Atomic Testing, Desert Inn, Gen, Las Vegas, Vintage Las Vegas
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-15
Updated: 2012-08-15
Packaged: 2017-11-12 05:30:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/487251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NaughtiusMaximus/pseuds/NaughtiusMaximus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four months after Cuba, in atomic-testing era Las Vegas, final choices are made.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

Erik Lensherr awoke in the voluptuous embrace of Miss Elizabeth Taylor.

She stretched luxuriously against him, glanced down between their bodies.  “I told you I could hold it all night,” she purred with her smoldering smile.

\--o0o--

 

Wilbur Clark’s Desert Inn, jewel of the Las Vegas Strip, shimmered in the heat of the late-morning sun.  After a typically bitter cold night, the day was expected to be balmy. 

Mystique was sprawled nude across the high-roller ‘Hollywood’ suite’s master bed, sipping coffee and perusing the latest issue of Photoplay magazine.  While he always encouraged and preferred the woman’s exotic natural form, Erik had to admit that last night’s seduction by Marilyn Monroe -- and the abundant morning charms of the violet-eyed _piece de resistance –_ had been intriguing, to say the least. 

Toweling off stray shaving cream, he emerged from the bathroom post-shower in a robe and swim trunks.  He looked forward to a snooze on the pool deck, then his regular afternoon blackjack session.  Peering through the patio drapes, he noted Emma Frost attractively arranged on a poolside deck chair, speaking into a house phone, having spent _her_ morning basking in both the sun and the attention of many male admirers. 

 The trio and their cohort had traveled extensively throughout Europe, seeing the world while Erik and Emma racking up fabulous sums at both major gambling resorts and  private salons.  Always careful and discreet, Erik kept them moving often enough that they kept just under the radar of casino management or international police enquiries, but they had no real worries: Emma’s talents, combined with generous and judiciously placed gratuities, guaranteed their welcome. 

Having tired of both slopes and tropics, they’d encamped for the winter in Las Vegas.  The past several weeks here had been a glittering whirl of Christmas and New Year’s holiday festivities, followed by an endless circuit of casino high-limit salons, dining and showroom extravaganzas.  Last night they’d enjoyed Liberace tinkling on his keys.  Tonight would be a lavish Valentine’s Day dinner show.

He’d become quite well-known and well-liked around town, always accompanied by the stunning blonde and often the fiery redhead as well.  He’d soon found himself invited into Vegas’ shadow world -- Bosses “Doc” Stacher and Meyer Lansky accepted him as a kindred spirit, and ‘business meetings’ as well as private parties were opened to him.  Now, maitre’d’s whisked him with alacrity to best tables.  Prominent local celebrities and figures acknowledged him socially. 

Yes, Erik Lensherr had quickly found himself _noticed_ \-- under any other circumstance, his cue to immediately cut and run. 

But Las Vegas has no memory.

So Erik played this game – merely the latest of many – just as he had all the others.  Ever mindful of his take and his Mob ‘hosts’ alike, he was prudent to keep the money and Champagne flowing both ways, and the party never stopped.

It didn’t matter, after all. 

Soon enough, with _Homo sapiens superior_ dominant, any laughable ‘power’ wielded by the Jewish and Italian Mafia Families would be the least of humanity’s problems.  Ultimately, Erik dismissed them utterly as necessary though barely tolerated.

Like everything else in his life at present.

Long accustomed to a tiger’s solitary existence, Erik now found himself in charge of a largely mistrustful streak of them . . . two bickering tigresses in particular.  Emma considered Mystique too immature and conflicted to be of any use -- which she never failed to remind Erik at every available opportunity -- and Mystique no longer could rely upon the inviolable limit-line of filial love and trust, which Emma exploited to the point of both verbal and telepathic screaming matches between the two (which Erik, of course, had to break up).  Finally, as was _für die beste_ with all things Las Vegas, he’d found that simply throwing money at the problem until it went away was the path of least resistance. 

Anything for some quiet time to _think_! 

For that was the problem: Erik had never thought _past_ killing Sebastian Shaw, so all-consuming had been the chase. 

His life’s defining goal now achieved, he now found himself adrift in the tide of this new and greater cause, as yet ill-conceived:  mutants over humans.  The basic planning had begun with survival and foundation-building:  They needed money, a lot of it, and as quickly as possible before they were inevitably forced to operate underground.  This had been accomplished, (but he found himself pausing at the second step yet not knowing why.  The uncertainty of _stop, go back_ would not be denied.

Never before had he hesitated, never second-guessed himself. 

He _hated_ this.

More and more often of late, Erik had found himself longing for the all-too-brief respite he’d found in letting someone _else_ take the reins for a spell . . . in the _order_ of Charles Xavier’s anchoring presence, his influence and methods. . . even in the man’s _ideals_ , flawed though they were.  It all seemed so very far away.  The people in the world about him now were so narrow-minded, so _predictable_.  There was nothing at all stimulating or mysterious about the greed or self-interest of humanity.  

Erik Lensherr faced facts:  The continual upheaval and change he forced upon himself was not out of any concern for safety or secrecy…rather, it was his only weapon against the deadly ennui that encroached ever closer upon his mind.

 _Calm your mind…between rage and serenity_... 

Which brought him to _timing . . ._ the primary source of his disquiet.

Erik’s unease had grown as more and more time had passed yet their caprice remained unimpeded.  Erik’s calculated expectation of the progression of events was now inexcusably off, and his finely-honed survival instinct told him things were _not right_.

Some variable had occurred, and unexpected variables concerned him. 

Shaking it off, he flopped back onto the bed and slid Mystique into his arms once more.  Indeed, he never tired of her, but her very presence remained yet _another_ continual, unwelcome reminder of what and whom they’d both given up of their own free will. 

And her own moodiness of the past weeks had also not gone unnoticed. 

Kissing the top of her head, Erik grinned down at his lover with a malicious wit.

“You seem…blue.”

Mystique glared up at him over her coffee cup.  The remains of a Lucullan room-service brunch were spread on a cart nearby, and there was a slushy clink as the Champagne bottle settled deeper into the ice bucket.  She set the cup and magazine aside, and rolled into him, sighing. 

“It’s nothing.”  But her flat reply was forced.

“It’s not ‘nothing.’ I know perfectly well what it is.  You’re tired.”

“We’re all tired.”

“Do you want to change your mind?  To go back?”

“No.”

“It would be an easy matter to slip in unnoticed.”

“No.”

“Do you want to call him?”

“ _Jesus_!  Just leave me _alone_!” Mystique exploded upright, pushing off in sudden fury.  She stalked into the bathroom and slammed the door.  As if on cue, the sliding glass door opened and the drapery parted.  Raking off her sunglasses, Emma simmered in, skin glowing, bedecked in ubiquitous white and silver.  Erik smiled at the pleasant view, inhaling the piquant warm aroma of Sea  & Ski suntan lotion.  Emma jabbed a shocking-pink manicured finger toward the bathroom, eyebrows raised in question.  Erik shook his head, reached over and started buttering the last piece of toast.

"Good news,” Emma poured herself another glass of Champagne.  “Riptide and Angel are checked in at The Sands; Azazel’s with them.  When do we move?”

“Tomorrow.  Just enjoy the day.”

“I intend to.  I saw a diamond ring I like at the boutique.”  She looked over at him, expectant.  Erik opened the bedside table drawer, withdrew his billfold from beneath his pistol. He peeled off several hundred-dollar bills and handed them over.  “What is it they say here?  Knock yourself out.”

"You know, it would look better if you went shopping with me.  You won all this, they should see _you_ spending it.”

Erik looked at her. 

“Fine,” she put the money in her clutch purse and shed her robe. Erik’s gaze roamed and lingered appreciatively over her curves. She threw on a wraparound sun dress then sat at the vanity, pulling off her head wrap to brush out her hair.

Her gaze caught his reflected, and she turned, scowling.


“What is _with_ you lately?  You’ve been distracted for days; I’ve had to communicate hands to you twice.  This isn’t like you, and it’s not good for business.  Keep your head in the damn game.” 

“I’ve had a lot on my mind.”

Emma was unimpressed.  “Not ‘a lot.’  I’ve _told_ you, I’ll be able to tell immediately.  I’ve felt it before; I’ll know when they’re back up and running.  There’s been _nothing_ but silence.  Snap out of it and stop worrying!  You’ll be the second person to know.”

“Remember what we talked about.”

“I _know_.”  Irritable, she returned to her primping.  “It’ll be two-way for us; I’ll get as much out of him as I can before he shuts down.” 

“It’ll have to be fast; he’ll have the same advantage,” Erik warned. 

“I’m not stupid.”

“Neither is he.”

"I'm well aware of that.” 

Her glare reminded Erik that she had not forgotten Russia.

“And when are we leaving here for good?” Emma demanded point-blank, rising once more.  “You obsess for _weeks_ about planning and keeping mobile, and now it’s like you don’t care anymore.”

Before he could answer, the bathroom door opened and Mystique reappeared.  She and Emma regarded each other warily.  The azure woman was blotting her face with a cold towel but otherwise showed no emotion.  She then pulled on a stray robe; the gesture’s significance was not lost on Erik.

“Why don’t you go, too,” Erik suggested with atypical gentleness, peeling off a few more hundreds.  Mystique smiled faintly, took the money, sighed and shifted into her Raven persona once more. 

Now Erik could see she _had_ been crying.

Emma did not conceal her outright exasperation at this. As the telepath’s sexual interest in Erik was purely strategic, she harbored no jealousy. But she did not like anything that distracted him from their goal, and Mystique’s was the first name on that list.

Or the second.

But Emma ignored the ramifications of _that_ particular messy triangle.  They were unimportant to her -- for now.

“Fine.  Come on,” she went to the second bedroom, selected a pair of slingbacks for herself and an outfit for Raven. She shoved it toward her. “Wear that.”

Raven snatched the hanger up and started back toward the bathroom.  She halted with a abrupt stagger, then turned.  Her quickly-evolving smile was more radiant than the desert sun.

“What?” Erik said, frowning.

She looked up at him, eyes sparkling, hand flying to her forehead.  She gasped and laughed in rare delight. 

“ _Charles!”_

Erik and Emma had just enough time to glance at each other, to _comprehend_ , before the mental flashover ripped through both of them. 

“ _Follow it!  Follow him back!_ ” Erik shouted at her through his own blinding pain as he stumbled like a drunkard toward the closet.  This was _nothing_ like what he’d experienced in the Atlantic depths, or at Westchester.   _He’s so much stronger now!_   _Cerebro. . .Mein Gott, is this what it really does?! _

Mystique had backed away from the other woman, astonished and fearful at her companions’ reactions.  _Charles, stop, please!_ she thought wildly, but she could tell her brother was not hearing her, was as apart from her mind as he’d always promised.

Head ringing in agony, Erik at last scrabbled a desperate hold on what was hidden from prying eyes, and slammed the helmet onto his head.  The relief was instantaneous, a deluge extinguishing the fire in his mind. 

Emma was not so lucky.  But she had to hold on.  In fact, she had no choice now but to face the brunt of it -- _she couldn’t let go_ … _couldn’t move!_    She moaned in deep agonal heaves on the carpet.  Wave after wave of loneliness, pain, fear, _terror_ crashed into her.

And… _truth_.

-o0o-

 


	2. Chapter 2

For interminable minutes, Erik and Mystique sat in stunned silence. Mystique had fashioned an ice pack for him, and fixed him a much-needed drink. Slumped in a chair, Erik saw his hand actually shake as he brought the double bourbon rocks toward his lips. He set it down hard. Mystique was terrified and confused, not daring to speak to him. 

Emma was still retching in the bathroom. 

The telephone’s loud ring crashed into the silence, and they both jumped.  Erik pawed at the handset. 

“What.  Of course we know!  All of you just stay there.”  His hand was still unsteady as he hung up. 

The toilet flushed and the sink ran for long minutes.  At last Emma emerged, ashen behind her tan.  Beads of sweat dotted her hairline and upper lip, which she blotted with a wet washcloth.  She seemed too weak to stand, and slid down the wall to sit on the shag-carpeted floor.  The silence ticked on.  Presently Emma seemed to pull herself together, and rose.  Putting on her shoes, she returned to her previous vanities as if nothing at all had happened. 

“ _Well_?” Erik’s patience had worn through. 

Emma Frost turned and regarded them both with a smile that defined her name.  Erik felt a frisson of dreadful premonition at the look on her face, _in her eyes_ … 

Emma turned back to the mirror and with a casual air began reapplying her lipstick. “The bullet broke his back -- hit his spinal cord.” 

She might as well have been reciting a grocery list. 

“He’s had fusion, steel plates and rods – which might be useful for _you_ to remember, should the appropriate situation present itself.  At any rate, he’s paralyzed -- in a chair likely for life.”  Emma blotted her lips and regarded her turnout.  She caught Erik’s stricken gaze in the mirror, then faced him with a satisfied smile.  “And _you_ just ripped the bullet outand then _moved_ him.  How very like Shaw.”  She tipped a nod of genuine approval. “I’m impressed.”

With an explosive burst of speed and agility that startled Erik and Emma alike, Mystique was upon her in a hot blue flash.  The younger woman’s scaled hand grabbed her throat, and Mystique slammed Emma against the wall, pinning her before the telepath even knew what was happening, let alone able to carbonize to diamond. 

_“You lying bitch!  I’ll kill you!”_ Mystique snarled, white teeth and gold eyes blazing scant inches from Emma’s face. 

“ _Get your hands off me!”_ Emma drove her back, shocked and enraged. “Don’t you _ever_ put your hands on me again!”  Emma squared off with her.  “ _Lying,_ am I?!  See for yourself!” Eyes narrowing, Emma began to focus her power against Mystique. 

“ _That’s enough!”_   Erik barked, shoving them apart.  “Emma, get out.”

“With pleasure,” Emma snatched her purse up and stormed off, but not before smiling at each of them in turn.  “Happy Valentine’s Day,” she sneered.  With infinite satisfaction, she kept a further gleaned weapon of knowledge to herself.   

_Xavier’s greatest weakness of all…love.  Pathetic._  

                                                            --o0o--

“She’s lying.  She’s lying.” 

Mystique paced and repeated the desperate litany, gnawing a knuckle.  She stalked over to the phone, picked it up, put it down, continued to pace – a tigress caged.  “She’s lying,” she nodded to herself and looked at Erik, breathing fast, voice taut. She looked at the phone again, paced back and snatched it up once more.  Her quick glance dared Erik to say a word, and he didn’t.  She dialed “0” – but before the dial could complete its spin, she slammed the handset back down.  The phone’s bell _jinged_ in protest at the harsh treatment. 

“Do it.”

She snapped up a negatory hand, then pointed toward him, shaking her head.

“No.  She hates you _both_ for what you did to her in Russia, and she would say _anything_ to get rid of me.  It’s a trick.  She’s lying,” Mystique nodded harshly, swallowing with difficulty around the new hard lump in her throat. 

_Please…she’s lying._

But she picked up the phone again.  The blaring dial tone mocked her agony.  Her hand was shaking and she missed the “0.”  Then Erik was there, taking the handset from her.  He dialed and waited for the hotel operator.  He began reciting the number.

Mystique punched the carriage down, took the handset back and hung up.  She held both her hands over the phone in firm denial -- they were trembling.  “No.  _She’s lying_.”

“Raven…” Erik started.

The phone rang, and she jumped back with a little scream.  Erik told the operator to never mind. 

                                                            --o0o-- 

The rest of the day could progress only downhill. 

Mystique retreated to the suite’s Roman bath.  Erik knew he was on a razor’s edge of cracking, and had to get out of there.  He sought the familiar refuge of the casino.  But Lady Luck had also abandoned him, and if one ‘Bert Cohen’ didn’t answer his repeated page soon, Erik would personally hunt _him_ for good measure. 

Erik was a skilled and iron-nerved player even without Emma’s assistance, but when he’d lost over $1000 in a mere 15 minutes of blackjack, he knew it was over -- the writing was on the wall.  The casino was small and close – windowless, not much more than the size of a large office.  Obviously unable to don his helmet in the casino, the serpent of paranoia now uncoiled deep within him: outside the suite, unprotected, he was now in _real_ danger -- _from Charles Xavier!_ \-- a novel and terrifying sensation. 

_What if they don’t want to be found by you?_

_What if I don’t?_

He headed outside quickly, needing to breathe, trying to steady himself once more.  But here he was confronted by silent, haunting figurals of an unfamiliar culture **–** the murals and icons of the resort’s Kachina Doll Ranch house – _the children’s building_ …  Youngsters squealed and played happily within, guarded by caretakers both mortal and spiritual. 

The serpent within him was rearing back to strike now.

A low groan startled him and he whirled – a portion of metal railing just starting to collapse.  He quickly righted it and headed inside, stabbing the key into the suite door.  He was about to take the headgear up once more, when he paused, leaving it and sagging against the door.

_Get a grip on yourself_! he rebuked, closing his eyes.

…c _alm your mind..._

_We both want the same thing._

_…oh, my friend, I’m sorry, but we do not..._

_What did you just do to me?_

_Paralyzed._

__“Scheisse.”  Steeling his nerves, he crossed the room and called The Sands.  “Pack up, the party’s over.  We’re heading back to Switzerland tomorrow . . . for good.”

He hung up, knowing that Azazel would waste no time -- probably already at the Geneva safe house even as Erik pondered the thought.  But the man would be

back the next day, when all had been readied.  Erik needed just enough time to settle up with casinos, transfer funds to the Swiss accounts and make his goodbyes. 

No doubt his friends here would all nod with knowing sympathy about his ‘reversal of fortune’ and wish him well.

He heard a muffled, agonized keening from the bath – Mystique, screaming into a rolled-up towel.  He clapped the heels of his hands over his forehead.

_Why did that stupid human bitch have to shoot?!_

Death would have been preferable.  Anything but _this_.

The hunter, _now the hunted._

_God damn you, Charles Xavier! Why must I know you?_

He made another drink.

Mystique was right:  Emma was lying.  _She had to be_. 

                                                            --o0o--   

That evening, without further comment to either of her shell-shocked companions, Emma Frost breezed out of the suite in a white Yves St Laurent cocktail dress, her new diamond-and-ruby ring blazing.  Erik doubted any man alive would ever notice she rarely wore gloves even to formal events.  She alone would be accepting his comp to the Valentine’s Day dinner show in the Painted Desert Room, but “alone” was a status that never applied to Emma Frost for long.  

It had started to rain.

Mystique slipped nude onto the suite’s darkened cabana, to feel the outside night cold and heraldic downpour.  Water pooled and ran in tickling rivulets along her scales and down her skin.  Unsettled desert thunder rolled over the mountains, and ions charged the air. 

A storm was coming.

She heard the sliding door behind her.  An moment later he was with her, holding her shoulders, coaxing her back inside – but only because it was cold.  Erik would never be ashamed of her, never hide her.  She took his offered hand and followed him.  Once inside, she molded against him.  In shared silence they watched a distant flash of lighting, the rainy haloes around the pool deck lights. 

It was incongruous to Mystique that elsewhere in this very same building, happy friends and lovers could be celebrating and carousing while she was suffering so . . . that painted ponies of Las Vegas could still turn around the buffeting maelstrom of her emotions . . . that the games endlessly played . . .    




__She couldn’t _remember if she’d seen him move_.

She wasn’t _sure_.      

And now she’d seen precisely the same spectre haunt Erik’s gaze.

An idea occurred to her, and she craned her neck up.

“Azazel?”

Erik shook his head.  “I thought of that.  He can’t teleport into a building where he’s never been.”

“Outside, then.  You said, slip in unnoticed?”

“The news said it’s snowed there all day.”

“So he’d leave tracks. Shit.”     




Ominous thunder rolled.  She looked over at the clock: 9:30.  _12:30 in New York._

_If he’s all right, he’ll still be up._

She made the call.

The other end picked up after the third ring.

                                                            --o0o--

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just FYI: By 1962 atomic testing in the Nevada desert had moved underground, but in checking the schedule, tests were actively conducted in the days covered in this story. Casino guests could feel these as earthquake type sensations. Wilbur Clark's Desert Inn indeed existed, and became the Desert Inn later of "Vega$' TV show fame and one of my favorite casinos in the 80's. The Wynn was erected on its old site, and I was sad to see it go. The Kachina Doll Ranch House and Painted Desert Room were actual parts of the WCDI resort. If you go to Las Vegas, do visit the Atomic Testing Museum, which is a fascinating collection of ephemera, technical information and societal propaganda of the Atomic Age and how it was exploited for tourist dollars.
> 
> This story originally is just these two chapters. I do have The Phone Call written, but I'm still considering whether it adds or detracts from the overall; I may or may not just leave things as they are. Thanks for all the kudos, I'm going to move some more stuff over here shortly


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